Hi! My name is Clairissa Silva from Portland Oregon. I have a very important question that seems to have a very elusive answer. I have spent hours online searching, but have not had any luck finding anything close. Before I drop this bomb on your fancy brain, let me paint the whole picture for you......I m a very physically active 36 year old with a high pain tolerance, lots of piercings, and is particularly stubborn about going to the doctor for ANYTHING....Oh... and I like to climb just about anything, but that temporarily got put on hold when I broke my ankle pretty bad in July 2012. I dismounted from a tree about 12 - 15 feet up and landed all my body weight on my right ankle which dislocated it. The talus bone was the force that snapped the ends of my tibia and fibula off during the dislocation process. (I didn t even know that it could do that!) When anyone shows up to the ER with a dislocation, the doctor on board is required to relocate the body part before the onset of inflammation occurs which makes task more difficult with every passing moment. When the time came for that nasty event to unfold, he preformed it without knocking my ass out first due to his observation that I appeared to be in little, or no pain. Because I was currently training my body, and mind to convert any consensual pain into pleasure, you could say that I was having an abnormally good time, and the doctor took that as a green light to make a mistake that later on would eventually bring me to where I am today. Long story longer... The unnecessary trauma, created a fracture blister, so when the foot specialist went to open me up and fix me, he couldn t until it had cleared up. My bones had already started to regenerate by the time he could cut me open to screw in the 2 initial plates, which threw off his placement. Instead of both of the bones reaching out to grow back together, the fibula was bolted down, and secured just a tiny bit too far away from the broken off bit to reach it sufficiently. He had to slice through the same incision, unscrew/remove the plate, create another incision to remove bone from my own heal, mix that with bone from a cadaver to make a putty to fill the gap, drill all new holes, and place a new plate. On top of hitting the reset button on healing time, I had to use a bone simulator machine daily, but the job was done right. I got to keep the old plate and screws, so I have a $1,300 piece of titanium jewelry in my collection which I wear around my neck. Everything healed perfect, except for the skin that covered the outer plate. It always seemed to be irritated to some degree. I could feel the screw heads pretty clearly, and trace the outline of both plates through my skin. Then in April 2013, while working full force as Farmboy landscaper, one of my employees accidentally hit me directly in the ankle with a shovel. The only thing between steel, and titanium, was that fragile skin. A few days later I looked down to see something shiny. Thank God that my actual bones have been long healed, and sealed up or else I could have been in trouble I m sure. I called the foot specialist to get his advice before making any appointments but he was on vacation, so I waited a bit. Metal attracts bacteria like crazy, so being extra cautious has been the norm. I have had a daily routine from the start which includes cleaning, sanitizing, and bandaging. The current amount of plate that you can actually see is significantly smaller than what was initially there. I was even instructed by my doctor to squeeze the skin around it together, then secure it with tape to encourage it to form together. There is virtualy no recorded cases, blogs, entries, pictures, medical forums, or info of any kind at the library/internet, so I m now starting to ask around to the web doc s to see what they can make of it. The 1 year anniversary of being visably bionic is coming up, and without any real issue.Trust me when I tell you that I have more than enough experience with how to deal with metal objects in, and through my body. I ve gotten close to getting critically infected from a handful of the various, and abundant amount of adornments that I ve acquired throughout the years, and had to do some major home remedies that saved the day. I was curious what my risk factors are for getting into some real trouble in the future if I just continue to treat my ankle bling like....well....ankle bling. Thanks for hearing me out! I have tons of pics as well if you are interested in checking them out. Thanks! Clairissa Silva in Portland Oregon